Recently I bought some destashed wool from a person in Ontario. She had purchased a large amount of excellent quality wool, mohair and blends form a person who was retiring I believe, way too much for herself, so she was selling it online. There were many pretty colours and grades to choose from. I made a selection and she posted more, so I added to it. I am very pleased with the wool. Much of it does not come in useable form, but on a skein and it needs to be wound into a ball to work with so it won't tangle.

I am not a fan of working with boucle wool because of all the extra loops, but I love the way it looks when finished. I bought a beautiful fall coloured rust boucle wool and mohair blend to make something for my daughter in Australia. I gave it a try attempting to crochet it, but quit after the first row. This one will have to be knit on larger needles so the loops are not mistaken for stitches themselves. There is also a beautiful pastel coloured gradient boucle of wool and a little mohair that I can crochet. I have started a little of it to see how it goes, but of all that I bought, this is my absolute favourite. It is as soft as a cloud and the colours are those I love to wear. I am going to make a small shawl, since there is only one large skein of this yarn.

There are quite a few utility yarns for sweaters or lap blankets and such. They will stitch up quickly. I ordered several plastic looms too. These are devices that one loops the yarn around and then brings the under thread over the new loop, thereby creating a knit stitch. They come in several sizes and shapes. One is a sock loom, and it has not arrived yet, and the others are round looms and rectangular looms. The easiest is to make something continuous, like a toque or scarf, but they can be used going back and forth too, to make small blankets, that can eventually be sewn together to make a large blanket. Sweaters and shawls and basically anything one can imagine are easily done on the looms. For the very loopy boucle wool, this might be the best answer. The projects go rather quickly too, because there are two strands held together for the projects since the pegs are very large.

I had hoped to send my own fleece out to be made into yarn, but so far it has been too contaminated with hay to make anything really nice. I did send some to the mill and got batts made for felting, but it too has quite a bit of hay in it. Ah, maybe next year the wool will be better.

I like to work on about 5-8 projects at a time, so there are many different needles and hooks with different wool in them beside the chair I love to sit and work from. Eventually the projects get finished. I know that is not the way most people work, but it is always the way I have functioned. Along with knitting, loom weaving and crocheting, I will be sewing, making soap and working with the critters, so there are even more projects than one can see at first glance.

Do you knit or crochet? I prefer real wool, mohair, angora, silk or cotton to anything synthetic. How about you?